“I wish to push, as a result of within the push you turn out to be extra artistic, extra clever,” Prada instructed me.

I requested Patrizio Bertelli why his partnership along with his spouse had been so profitable. “I ask myself the identical query on a regular basis,” he stated. “We by no means labored as a result of we had been anxious to turn out to be well-known or wealthy—we labored for the pleasure of doing one thing that was fascinating and constructive, and to get pleasure from it, to have enjoyable.”

Their two halves—one artistic, the opposite industrial—have solid a powerhouse international model within the span of a single lifetime. Prada is now listed on the Hong Kong inventory change, although the household nonetheless owns 80 p.c of the enterprise. The couple, now each of their 70s, have been cautious in planning a easy succession. A brand new CEO, Andrea Guerra, was put in simply final 12 months, and Lorenzo, who gave up an expert rally racing profession along with his personal Fuck Matiè workforce to hitch the corporate in 2017, is now answerable for know-how, advertising, sustainability, and the corporate’s new nice jewellery division.

In 2020, Prada surprised the style world by saying that Raf Simons, the enormously revered Belgian designer, would come aboard to codesign the label alongside Miuccia Prada as an equal artistic companion, collaborator, and instigator.

Once I requested Simons why he had stated sure, he answered me in a single phrase: “Miuccia—so simple as that.”

Like his collaborator and artistic companion, Simons didn’t go to vogue faculty (he studied industrial design) and simply admits that “my curiosity in artwork is way greater than my curiosity in vogue.” The 2 had lengthy been admirers of one another’s work, and each spoke of the necessity for actuality, practicality, which means, and, sure, usefulness of their collections. And although their collaboration started with the understanding that if both actually hated the opposite’s concept, they wouldn’t do it, they each instructed me that they’ve discovered working collectively nothing lower than a gathering of minds.

“It’s going very nicely,” Prada stated. “We now have the identical style, and more often than not we now have precisely the identical concept. He’s a really good particular person and intellectually trustworthy—an important high quality.”

“It clicked in an unbelievable method,” stated Simons. “I believe that we’re [both] dialogue folks—she likes collaborating, she likes to work with folks—wants it, I believe. Something generally is a place to begin, whether or not we like it or hate it or suppose it’s foolish or humorous or unhappy or silly or political.”